© 2000 Jean Davier
© 200 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
The term Melchizedek designates an order of divine sons halfway in the spiritual hierarchy between God and men. They are also called emergency sons. After the rebellion of the planetary prince Caligastia and the failure of the material sons Adam and Eve, twelve Melchizedeks assumed the supra-material jurisdiction of our planet. They can make themselves visible to material creatures and even incarnate as was the case with Machiventa Melchizedek on our earth. It is interesting to consult the testamentary and New Testament chronicles which deal with this subject:
The Urantia Book updates in its truth this divine adventure that has become legendary. 1973 years before J.C., following the Adamic failure, humanity, despite a certain mental progress, loses the notion of God, its spirituality experiences an inexorable decadence. Machiventa, one of the twelve Melchizedeks invisible managers of our planet, personalizes himself on earth as a temporal man and becomes a divine son of help. He attempts this adventure, he appears as an adult to a Chaldean shepherd and will stay 94 years here below. He assembles a group of students in Salem. He speaks Chaldean and several other languages, he is dressed as a priest of Canaan and wears the emblem with three concentric circles which will be considered sacred by his disciples. He will leave no descendants. The Adjuster he receives for the duration of his mission will then be that of Jesus. During his incarnation, Machiventa communicates only with his eleven companions of the body of planetary syndics. He develops his teaching on the basis of the doctrine of the Sethite priests of the Second Eden. He teaches the concept of the One God, but allows his listeners to confuse the Universal Deity and the Most High of Edentia. However, he will not be able to make most of his students understand the notions of Infinity, Eternity and Trinity.
The religion of Salem, inaugurated by Machiventa, corresponds to the mental level of the time. In addition to the concept of the One God, it teaches the alliance of the Most High with his people and the seven commandments. A sacrament of bread and wine replaces the sacrifices of flesh and blood. Despite the prudence of innovation, Machiventa does not succeed in completely eradicating the ancient practices, but prepares the coming of a Paradise Son.
His meeting with Abraham is not fortuitous. His choice falls on him and his family, because they all have varied talents: intelligence, initiative, sincerity, sagacity. Abraham, at the head of a powerful tribe, will not be the leader of a “chosen people”, but of the only nation that will maintain the truth in a Unique God and this in contrast with the peoples venerating multiple and primitive deities.
Machiventa Melchizedek instructs Abraham, then withdraws to avoid becoming the object of a cult. He disappears shortly after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving Abraham to establish the truth in a Single God. The new nation is organized and prosperous. The choice of Palestine as a mission land by Machiventa, then by Jesus, is determined by the high mental level of its inhabitants and by the geographical location of this country which occupies, at that time, a central position in civilized space. Unlike the first and second revelations, the work of Melchizedek will not be a failure. He persuades Abraham to abandon military conquests and to promote a spiritual concept of the Kingdom. He suggests an alliance of God with men. He proposes salvation by faith and not by sacrifice. But these new doctrines will quickly be altered by the old evolutionary beliefs.
When Machiventa ended his earthly career, missionaries crossed Egypt and preached the gospel of Salem to the Mediterranean peoples while others reached India, China, Tibet and Japan.
In Egypt where an intense struggle reigns between tribal polytheism and the concept of the One God “The original teachings of Melchizedek took root more deeply and then spread to Europe” (UB 95:2.1), because Egypt already has an evolved religion “they believed that a soul separated from the physical body, if it was properly armed with magic formulas, could avoid the evil intermediary spirits and reach the judgment hall of Osiris where it would then be admitted to the realms of bliss, if it was not guilty.” (UB 95:2.9) The missionaries of Salem arrived in Rome in -600, but were powerless before the myriad of gods, cults dedicated to heroes, to the mother of god, to the forty successive emperors.
In Greece, where philosophers and elites of society never took the deities of Olympus seriously, where the absence of priests did not allow the establishment of a lasting cult, there will remain of the doctrine of Salem a background of belief on “the intelligence of the universe, the idea of God, of the great source” (UB 98:2.4)
The failure is total in Arabia. In Iran, the cult of Zoroaster partly restores the light of Salem. In Mesopotamia, the disciples of Salem reduce the number of gods but are defeated by the goddess Ishtar “All that remains of them are psalms from the Old Testament engraved on stones that the Hebrew priests incorporated into their writings” (UB 95:1.10)
In India, where Vedic worship reigns, subject to the Brahmin caste, there will remain only a few traces of the gospel of Salem, drowned in the philosophy of transmigration of souls.
In China, the Salem educators arrived in the middle of the second millennium BC. The cult of ancestors disrupted their teaching. However, around the sixth century BC, three masters restored this gospel:
Melchizedek’s rescue mission would be virtually forgotten by the time of Jesus.
Currently Machiventa Melchizedek resides on Jerusem, capital of our local system with 619 inhabited planets. He is vicegerent of our planet. “Machiventa could one day replace, according to recent ordinances, Caligastia and become planetary prince of Urantia, recent events seem to suggest it” (UB 93:10.6).
History reveals to us that there is no “evening of the worlds”, but a perpetual march of the worlds towards greater perfection. The planet has known betrayal and failure. Divine revelations have been altered, distorted. A new superhuman intervention has reached us in the form of a book. We are not alone, Jesus said to John “You are not asked to carry the burden of the Son of Man; only the guardian must watch while the city sleeps in peace” (UB 134:9.5). Rodan of Alexandria expresses it in his philosophy “What is the best way for me to awaken the latent beneficial powers that sleep in your soul” (UB 160:3.1). And thus help the Son of Man in his desire for progress.
Jean Davier